


If I am, death is not

by Serpensortia_parapluie



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types, Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Don't copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 23:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpensortia_parapluie/pseuds/Serpensortia_parapluie
Summary: Jason doesn't understand why he keeps on living.





	If I am, death is not

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a new fandom to get into, because I've read pretty much everything I like for my old ones. Batman turns out to be it, for now at least. Surprising myself not at all, Jason is my favorite, followed by Tim, who I couldn't figure out how to work into this. This is the third different fandom I'm crossing with the Addams Family, so apparently that's just a thing I do now.  
> The only major character dying is Jason, and like. I'm pretty sure you already knew that.  
> I do not own, nor am I associated with any of the creators/owners of either Batman or the Addams Family. I also do not give my permission to share this on any third party sites, like Goodreads.  
> Please give me constructive criticism, especially along the lines of characterization.  
> The title come from a quote from Epicurus, "Why should I fear death? _If I am, death is not._ If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"

He’s always been tough, which sounds hilarious coming from a fifteen year old kid wearing tights and shiny green panties. It’s not funny though. Just because he can endure more than most everyone else he knows doesn’t mean he likes going through the pain.

For instance, being bashed in the head by a laughing maniac wielding a crowbar and then finding himself having to dig his way out of his own grave?

Not enjoyable in the slightest.

-

By rights, Jason Todd should have been dead several times over before he ever gets the chance to meet Batman. Somehow, against all odds, he survives time and time again. He’d almost chalk it up to something supernatural if he were inclined to believe in that sort of thing or think that if it existed it would have any care for him.

He doesn’t.

That kind of fantasy’s for kids, and Jason doesn’t have the luxury of being one for long.

-

Whatever it is that keeps him going, it’s not from his mom- either of them. The one who raised him didn’t have it, and the one who birthed him certainly didn’t either, or she wouldn’t have sold him out to the Joker to save her own skin.

Which means whatever death-defying genetics Jason inherited, he got from his scumbag dad. It’s weird, ‘cause he’s dead too. But Jason’s looked up the files quietly, after bribing Barbara to help him cover his tracks and not talk about it to Batman, and before his dad’s luck ran out, he was very lucky indeed.

Willis Todd had survived being a low-level goon to several of the more colorful members of Gotham’s rogue gallery with no major injuries, even through police raids and Batman attacks. It’s too late to ask him anything now, but at least Jason thinks he knows where it came from.

Why it’s stronger in him than in his birth father, why he came back and he can’t find any evidence of Willis doing the same, Jason supposes he’ll never know. Hell, maybe his dad did come back and just didn’t bother coming back to his family. Who the fuck knows?

-

Jason met a woman once, back before everything happened, when he was dragged along to yet another party in New York as part of his role as the newest adopted son of Brucie Wayne, the air-headed billionaire. He met many women this way, most of them grasping at his new wealth and status but bad-talking him behind his back. Not this lady. This particular woman was singular.

She was tall, almost as tall as Bruce and dressed in a curve-hugging midnight black dress that swept the floor, and her eyes were dark and heavy. They were also sharp and intelligent, Jason discovered when she cornered him near the buffet table. She didn’t actually box him in, but the politeness Alfred and Bruce had been trying to drum into his head had him trapped.

“Jason… Todd, is it?” she greeted him. “Well, Wayne now, of course- congratulations- but I do hope you decide to keep the last name you were born with, it’s very lovely. It’s very similar to the German word for death, you know.”

Jason eyes the platter of lady fingers he was about to make off with mournfully. “S’just a name, not like there’s anything special about Todd.”

The lady smiled, close-mouthed, and it was both lovely and predatory. Jason had seen both before on the streets and later on the faces of the Rogues, and he wasn’t sure what to do with the combination there, outside of Gotham and in his public persona. It made him think of Ivy’s poisons, Harley’s edged laugh, Catwoman’s claws.

So he smiled back, not quite his Robin smile, but something meaner, short and sharp and full of teeth.

She laughed loud, once- then she graced him with another, wider smile just as full of fangs.

“Speaking of names, what’s yours, lady? You already seem to know mine.”

“Oh, but of course I do, Mr. Todd-Wayne- it isn’t every day a visitor from Gotham comes to New York, and we must make the most of it when you do! Lovely place, Gotham- one of these days, we’re really going to have to buy a vacation home there.”

Jason eyed her warily. She didn’t seem crazy, but then he’d learned not everyone was as obvious about it, outside of Gotham. She still hadn’t told him her name.

Dick showed up soon after, cutting their conversation short.

Jason never did get that lady’s name.

He also never forgot her.

-

Talia kills him twice during his excruciating abbreviated and advanced League of Assassins training, and to this day, Jason’s not sure if she meant to or not. He’s not sure if she even knows she did it- he might have just passed out after training too hard, losing too much blood, too much air. He woke again quickly enough that it might have just been a black out.

It could have been, except he knows now the difference between the obliviousness of unconsciousness and the emptiness of nothing.

-

He can’t decide what’s worse: the fact that Bruce doesn’t love him enough to kill the Joker, or that he’s fairly certain he lost too much blood from the slice across his throat to have survived and somehow he’s still breathing.

(What would make it stop, he wonders? Make him finally stop coming back, permanently.

He needs to know- but then again, _no_ , no he doesn’t.)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact time!  
> 1) My mom dislikes Batman so it wasn't welcome in our home and it just hasn't really grabbed me beyond general pop culture before recently, so, like- I've seen some _Teen Titans_ episodes on _Toonami_ when I was a kid, and in retrospect I don't even know which Robin that was, though I suspect Dick; the Jack Nicholson movie, but all I remember is the "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" bit, I may have seen it as many as three times; the Jim Carrey Riddler one- that is basically all I remember; the animated one where Bruce is like, ancient and apparently none of the batkids exist because this random dude becomes the new Batman; and I'm pretty sure that all of those were over a decade ago. More recently, I've seen the old Adam West Batman show and _Under the Red Hood_ , back when I was still really into _Supernatural_ , enough to watch unrelated movies just because one of my favorite actors voice-acted in it, and that was still a good four-five years ago. I've also read a whole bunch of fanfiction recently, but no, I've never picked up a Batman comic, and judging by some of the comments I've seen about Jason's current run, that may be a good thing. Sorry guys. I tried. Please tell me if it's wildly OOC.  
> 1.5) I almost forgot, I've also seen _Starkid's **Holy Musical B@man!**_ Much more recently than anything else.  
> 2) You almost had another scene, where Jason did a stakeout on the docks, and met Morticia again and Gomez for the first time on a gondola on the- bay? I think it’s a bay- and they tell him they’re there on a honeymoon and isn’t the Gotham skyline at night just so romantic? but honestly that just doesn’t fit with the mood of what I have, so. Kaiidith.  
> 3) Please tell me about any OOCness and why you think so, and about any spots where the writing is clunky, I only read over it a couple of times so idek.


End file.
